Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RAM]

Move Spitters to Front 1 :(3) 10ebbor10, Blood_Librarian, kopout
Do Not Move Spitters: (0)
Move Spitters to Front 3: (5) NUKE9.13, Flazeo25, strongpoint, Puppyguard, RAM

Reduce warrior 10% => Shift to Hunter  (6) 10ebbor10, strongpoint, Flazeo25,  Blood_Librarian, Draignean, Puppyguard,
Soldier -5%, Worker -3% => Hunter +8% (1) RAM

Attack plains on the second front (2) NUKE9.13, Draignnean
Attack forest on the second front (6) 10ebbor10, Flazeo25, Strongpoint, kopout, Puppyguard, RAM

"Anatress": (1) Shadowclaw
"Novico": (3) Flazeo25, Crazyabe, Urist Mc Dwarf
"Forest Princess" N.S.C.: (1) Wolfchild
"Silvia": (0)
"Minerva". (1) kopout
Lamana v.2.0 (0)
Mnogumina: (0)
The Shaper of Many: (7) Blood_Librarian, strongpoint, Draignean, 10ebbor10, detoxicated, NUKE9.13, Puppyguard
Tiffany: (1) RAM

I would just like to take a moment to speak out against "survival of the fittest" being taken too far. And also Mad Cow Disease.

[Strongpoint]

I was thinking... What was the most effective way to wage war in a bronze age?
It is quite different to what phalanx did but this looks like a way to make workers deadlier in combat.

Worker Phalanx
While fighting against human hive learned the value of the spear and started to use ones for themselves. To compensate small size of Workers, Hive developed extra long spears meant to be carried by 5 workers standing one after another. They form a long and advance toward the enemy as a single unit. While hive's wooden spears lack metal spearheads they are still deadly against lightly armored targets or horses. Unlike humans, workers don't lose their combat ability once their formation is broken, because they can switch to their natural weapons.

[RAM]

I think that would require an action of some sort to modify the workers to form stacks, and probably three-dimensional structures. A stack really isn't going to be stable no matter how well connected they are, and spears require a certain amount of stability to work. Also it is a massive target for fireballs, catapults, and confusion spells. On the other hand, there are ants that form three-dimensional nests out of their own bodies, so it is not without precedent that we could make a three-dimensional structure that would be more stable that just wonky towers would be.

[10ebbor10]

I can't see it working, to be honest.

[Blood_Librarian]

We could do a horde style swarm, ala The Great Wall.

[Strongpoint]

I am confident that we need to find a use for timber. What can we do with it?

My list:

-Personal combat
--spears
--bows
--clubs
--shields
--wooden armor
-siege
--ladders
--rams
--catapults\ballistae
-construction
--wooden buildings
--tunnel supports
--traps
--fortifications
-energy
--fuel
--food
--fertilizer
-transportation
--boats\rafts
--bridges
--wagons

Anything I missed? What can be practical?

[crazyabe]

I am confident that we need to find a use for timber. What can we do with it?

My list:

-Personal combat
--spears
--bows
--clubs
--shields
--wooden armor
-siege
--ladders
--rams
--catapults\ballistae
-construction
--wooden buildings
--tunnel supports
--traps
--fortifications
-energy
--fuel
--food
--fertilizer
-transportation
--boats\rafts
--bridges
--wagons

Anything I missed? What can be practical?

-Burn it to cook Captives

[flazeo25]

Construction, energy and bridges/wagons seems most pratical for timber, as our drones would do better without wooden weapons or armor.

Wood would really only be useful as a weaponary is if we enslaved humans and had them fight for us.

[RAM]

I would leave it for chemical conversion. We could probably make some good glue out of it, or maybe some wall-slime like what was in Aliens that can set hard and be used as tunnel reinforcement and insulation.

[andrea]

cooking stuff may actually be a good idea.
Easier to digest and stuff. We can also start consuming things that would otherwise be poisonous.

[Detoxicated]

Getting the hang of wood might open opportunities for metal. I want steel plates eventually, certainly cheaper than equivalent evolutions.

[Strongpoint]

Is wooden armor really unpractical? It is quite cheap to strap a piece of wood over chitin and our drones are strong enough to not suffer from the additional weight. Humans tended to not use wood as armor because it is not flexible enough but it is less of a problem for our bugs.

I am still not sold that bows are a bad idea. Workers lose absolutely nothing from using bows. Bows give experience toward heavier stuff like ballistae.

Traps can work. Siege equipment can work. Why do we want to limit ourself only to natural weapons? Why do we want to limit ourself to food as a resource?

Also, dugout canoe's can be a way to start challenging seas

[Detoxicated]

Personally i see wooden tools as a cheap means to get something hseful for alot cheaper

[NUKE9.13]

Why do we want to limit ourself only to natural weapons? Why do we want to limit ourself to food as a resource?

Well, in some cases doing things naturally is easier than doing them with technology.

For example, a dugout canoe is not going to be much use against biremes. And if it capsizes, the 'crew' drowns. Whereas if we make aquatic drones, we can make them a lot more effective with the same amount of effort.

That being said, aquatic drones would eat up manpower, where a ship would use less to achieve the same effect. There's definitely value in pursuing wooden technology. Just, the results would initially be less effective than the equivalent natural solution (in most cases).

[RAM]

The problems with bows are they they need to be constructed, as do arrows. It may be that such is just ignored but it is also true that we basically have no civilians, so it would be conceivable that building bows would have a manpower cost. This is speculation, of course, but it seems that saying that it is completely free would be premature. There is also the risk that there is an energy cost from carrying the bows. Sure, it is far less than the drone's maximum capacity, but it is still additional mass that needs to be transported. We are aiming for "insignificant" rather than "nonexistent" additional energy expenditure. They will also suffer huge attrition, as they will be dropped prior to combat, and being dropped is not healthy, nor is being trampled.
It is possible that bows would only cost wood, but it is not guaranteed.

Enemy archers require training, we do not have training. Enemy archers can see stupidly far, we don't waste our effort on that garbage. I am not familiar with the rate at which they will thwart conventional defences nor do I know the likelihood of shooting their own people in the back, but I have suspicions that it wouldn't be effective. Perhaps a better place to start would be disposable lances or something... Simpler and more practical given our qualities. And if we want something complicated then we should probably go straight into leverage theory and then into trebuchets...

On the other hand, we are very good at biological manipulation and haven't done much with that. Much of our forces are largely unmodified. I am tempted to do what we are good at, rather than copying the The Loaf at what they are good at.